


On the Mend

by Shoulderpads



Series: Exit the Void [6]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Chronic Pain, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Medical Examination, Speculation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:02:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27990459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shoulderpads/pseuds/Shoulderpads
Summary: Vanitas and Sora finally end up going in for their exam at Radiant Garden. The science team hopes to find that noting bad has happened to them after coming back from the dead and traversing dimensions.But what Ienzo finds in Vanitas’s scans is not what he was looking for.
Series: Exit the Void [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1318184
Comments: 19
Kudos: 88





	On the Mend

**Author's Note:**

> Hey did you know I want even going to write this originally? Yeah! That line in “Contrast” about Ienzo wanting to look over Sora and Vanitas was a complete throw away! But some of y’all in the comments really latched on to it and wanted to see what I had planned lol. 
> 
> Well to that I say, thanks for obligating me to answer your questions because it has brought intrigue into this series that will affect quite a few of the installments to come

It was concerning, to say the least, how chipper Sora sounded as he explained his and Vanitas’s outing for the day. The scientists from Kairi’s hometown would be looking into their hearts to make sure nothing strange or damaging had come from their foray into death. He addressed it with the concern of a hiker checking for ticks after leaving the woods. 

But then, death had become a disturbing sort of commodity of late. Kairi dying had been the reason Sora ended up in some other dimension’s purgatory scavenger hunt in the first place. Vanitas himself had told her he’d been killed twice that he could remember. 

And Sora toyed with death like it was a friend. Apparently he’d been crossing the line between it and dreams for most of his life and told her how beautiful The Final World was with its cotton clouds of mirrored water. He’d taken multiple trips to the place worlds consumed by darkness came to rest, Aqua having spent nearly twelve years there before he, Riku, and the mouse king yanked her out. He apparently had a sort of friendly (well, from his end anyway) rivalry with the god of death, fought him and his guard dog on multiple occasions. He’d even taken his fists to the dark lord of the seas, and his ghostly crew. 

So, it made sense that it wouldn’t concern Sora or most of his friends to jump rope with the line between life and death, but it made Kumo want to lock him inside that house with something those keyblades couldn’t open. And a dark, terrible part of her wanted to hate Ventus for having dragged her child into this maddening world in the first place. But she had no power to change things, and knowing Sora’s heart, he was always bound to find trouble if it meant the safety of others. At least the job came with loving friends who could meaningfully support him in ways she couldn’t. 

She just hoped beyond hope that those scientists didn’t find anything wrong.

—

Ienzo had that same soft smile he used when giving Kumo a gummi phone. Vexen, or rather Even, as he reintroduced himself, didn’t both with such pleasantries. He went back to fiddling with equipment after the necessary greetings. Ienzo was a weakling, tall and skinny, somewhat skittish. Sora has brushed him off when arguing with Ventus. He’d said Ienzo didn’t fight. Sora would know these things. Vex-Even didn’t seem much of a threat either. He’d been in the true Organization, sure, but he’d been “benched.” Xehanort didn’t seem to think Even had any skills worth putting on the frontline. Apparently he’d played an important hand in turning the tide of the fight by making replica bodies, so his utility came from intelligence, not battle prowess. 

Ansem was the only one that gave him pause. Sora gave him a brief rundown on the flight there that the Ansem that was in the Organization stole the name and that this guy was the real Ansem and not a heartless of some other fragment of Xehanort, which was...confusing, but it was the lack of proper information that bothered Vanitas more. He was in charge, of this lab at least. It was unclear where he stood politically despite living in the castle. He was old, but not ancient. His hair still held color, and perhaps it was stress that carved lines in his face. But age didn’t determine danger. Ansem didn’t stand like a combatant. The way he put weight in his feet wouldn’t be effective for jumping into battle. He’d shaken Vanitas’s hand without hesitation, the grip firm but not strong, before clasping his hands behind his back once more. His eyes were steely and stoic like amber ice over an ocean. If Vanitas focused, he could sense coppery resentment coming from the man like a sputtering engine as bitter remorse tried to quash it down. 

Still, Vanitas forced himself to sit down on the slightly reclined chair without giving a hint of anything besides his usual arrogance. He wasn’t sure how they’d react if he just turned and walked out, especially with that wall off beef chatting with Sora in the hall. 

“Alright, let’s get started then,” Ienzo said, his voice chipper yet calm. “I’m going to begin with just a regular check up, nothing you shouldn’t already know.”

But he didn’t know. He didn’t understand the rod Ienzo stuck under his tongue, or the light shined down is throat, in his eyes, his ears. He didn’t know what the cuff squeezing his arm did, didn’t know why Ienzo rapped his knees with a small mallet or why his legs kicked out without his permission. He didn’t know why Ienzo needed his height and weight. He didn’t know why the scientist frowned when jotting down the scale’s reading. 

His fingers ripped through the paper lining the chair when Ienzo pressed some kind of probe right against his heart. He could feel the cold of the metal through his shirt and it took everything in him not to smash his keyblade against the guy’s jaw and bolt. Ienzo gave him the most reassuring grin he could manage through it shook as he adjusted the things stuck in his ears. 

“Just take some deep breaths,” he said. 

“I’m fine,” Vanitas spat. 

“Oh, the deep breaths is part of the exam. I’m going to listen to your lungs and make sure they’re nice and strong.”

Vanitas wet his lips. “Oh.”

He struggled to take in even breaths. He wouldn’t show these losers any weakness, either in his resolve or his lung capacity. Ienzo slid the device around his chest and then around his back. It made the breathing task difficult, like the muscles around his ribs were trying to shy away from the touch. But eventually Ienzo relented, and he didn’t look mad or disappointed, so he took that as a pass. 

“Ok, now comes the easy part,” said Ienzo. “We’re just going to take some scans now. All you have to do is sit back and relax and let the machine do the work. You won’t feel a thing. Even?”

The other man nodded from a computer terminal. “Ready.”

“Excellent! Go ahead and lay back, Vanitas.”

Ienzo curled his arms around his clipboard and went to stand next to Ansem (who hadn’t moved from his place watching with his arms behind his back). 

A machine whirred above him, and a green line of light ran up and down his form for a few minutes, but Ienzo hadn’t lied. Vanitas felt nothing and let some of the tension in his muscles go. 

When it stopped, Ienzo pulled a chair next to Vanitas and turned to a fresh page on his clipboard. 

“The machine has to take a few minutes to process the data it collected, so while we wait, I’d like to ask you a few questions?”

Vanitas shrugged. 

“Well, alright. But remember you don’t have to answer me. Any pain since awakening in Shibuya or since coming back to our realm?”

Vanitas thought about it. Yes. He felt pain. There was an ache in his chest that never went away. It had become duller over the years with a flare up every now and then. Old injuries that never healed quite right still bothered him, especially in Destiny Islands’ climate. Soreness persisted in his muscles usually, unless he soaked in a bath. But these were all normal pains and they hadn’t just started after his defeat in the graveyard. In fact, he felt better most days, though he could attribute that to his bed and lack of training routine. So he said:

“No.”

Ienzo smiles and scribbled something down. “That’s good to hear, Vanitas. Anything other than that? Trouble sleeping? Loss of appetite? The opposite of that? Anything out of the ordinary?”

He slept more than he had when living in the graveyard, though he figured that was probably a positive and therefore not of note. He didn’t have much of an appetite, no, but he couldn’t remember having a very strong one to begin with. Kumo’s talent for cooking made the experience much more enjoyable than Xehanort’s apparent inability to make even porridge. However, he didn’t find himself wanting the way Sora would whine that he was “starving,” nor did he find himself shying away from meals. To say the least, he hadn’t noticed anything symptomatic since waking up. 

He shook his head. 

“That’s great. Sounds like you’re in pretty good health, all things considered. As long as the test results agree that you’re fine, then we’ll have one less thing to worry about.”

Ienzo went to stand by Even and the two began a discussion. Ansem still hadn’t moved. 

“Take a picture,” he said to the man, “it’ll last longer.”

Ansem blinked as if startled. “Oh. My apologies, Vanitas. I was just thinking.”

“Tch.” Apologies to Vanitas were a bad look on people. 

Ansem went to discuss with his underlings. Vanitas twiddled his thumbs. 

“Um, Vanitas?” Ienzo called from the computer. 

He looked over. 

“Xehanort said you’re all darkness right?” Even asked, his green eyes piercing. 

“That’s right. Taken from Ventus,” Vanitas said, his voice mechanical. 

“Are you one hundred percent certain of that clean split?”

Vanitas frowned. Why wouldn’t he be? Xehanort wasn’t stupid, he knew what he was doing when he rent them apart. You couldn’t just pull someone’s heart apart in equal pieces to make another person like mitosis. So of course he was all darkness and Ventus all light besides what Sora had loaned. 

“What are you getting at?” he asked, hands twisting in his lap. 

Ienzo came over with a tablet. “It’s quite fascinating really. Here.”

He spun the tablet around so its screen faced Vanitas. A collage of staticky black and white shapes met his eyes. He studied if for a second before looking up at Ienzo. 

“This is an image we were able to take of your heart from the scans. This is what’s inside you.”

Vanitas’s hand curled unconsciously in his shirt. He felt strangely...exposed. 

Ienzo used the eraser end of a pencil to point to different bits and pieces of his heart, explaining them. 

“There appears to be swaths of it missing, which appears to cause stress and strain on the beating of your heart, but I take it that’s from the initial split?” Ienzo asked, outlining the asymmetrical form of the image. 

Ventus’s heart probably didn’t have chunks missing, Vanitas thought with a sneer. Not when literal infant Sora fixed him up and then coddled him for a decade. 

“Sounds about right.” Vanitas crossed his arms. 

Ienzo hummed. “We’ll have to see about monitoring that.”

Before Vanitas could snap that he’d lived just fine with it before, Ienzo circled a blob of white clinging to the black mass of his heart. 

“See this though? This is the most intriguing part of the scan. This is light.”

Vanitas stilled. It was as if someone had crammed a vacuum tube down his throat and flicked the switch. He stared at the pustule of light latched on to his heart, the peripherals of his vision tunneling on the thing. 

“Your scan is wrong,” he said, throat dry. 

“Vanitas-“

“I don’t know what sick game you’re trying to play, but you can’t trick me like that. All you lights can lecture me about how there must be light in me, I can’t be all darkness as much as you like, but I _am_ darkness, and that’s not going to change because you people buy me shoes or decide to see some delusion of humanity in me, and if you think you can just _lie_ to me because you think I’m _stupid_ and that I’ll join your crusa-“

“Vanitas!”

The sharper tone made Vanitas stop. He sucked in oxygen. 

“We are not trying to trick you or convince you of anything. This is simply the results of a test, and as a scientist I would not do something as deplorable as faking results for the sake of an agenda. I have no fear or qualms with the darkness. It was not long ago that I was on its side and shrouded myself in its shadows. Be you darkness or light my only concern is your wellbeing. You could walk outside right now and continue to wreak havoc as you once did and it would not be my priority.”

Vanitas blinked up at Ienzo in a stupor. He looked so cold standing above Vanitas with the tablet held in the crook of his arm and his smiling demeanor washed away. 

Vanitas wasn’t so sure about Sora’s assessment anymore. 

“So why do you?” he asked. “Have concern for my wellbeing, that is?” His voice was small. 

Behind Ienzo, Even looked bored and Ansem’s eyes had widened considerably. 

“Because I owe Sora that much, and quite frankly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t study the effects traversing into such a different realm and coming back from death were.” He sighed. “I also have a heart and wouldn’t want you to suffer.”

Vanitas’s hands tightened against the sides of his shirt. 

“Now, may I please explain my conjecture on the matter?”

Vanitas nodded. 

“Thank you. Do you know what a nobody is?”

Vanitas made a so-so gesture with his hand. 

Ienzo nodded. “Alright. When a person becomes a heartless, creatures formed by the Realm of Darkness or by a heart succumbing to darkness, their husk of a body is left behind. If their heart was strong, their body will retain consciousness and be able to carry on on its own.”

Vanitas thought back to Kumo’s paperbacks. “Like a zombie?”

Ienzo’s mouth quirked up a smidge. “In a sense, but with far more consciousness and a distinct lack in taste for brains. Those of us who were in the original Organization XIII were all nobodies of notably strong hearts, which allowed us to retain human form and memories. But we lacked hearts and thereby emotions. However, given enough time, a fledgling heart may start to regrown within the nobody, allowing them emotions once more. Not that we’d have known under Xemnas’s leadership.” Something bitter flashed across Ienzo tiny smile. “Anyway, our knowledge concludes that the heart is a very powerful thing, and has the ability to heal itself, even starting from ground zero. It is because of this that I believe your heart is mending itself from the damage Xehanort did to you. If a nobody can regenerate a complete heart, it stands to reason that you should be able to regenerate the light in yours. Lea’s heart was able to almost completely heal itself before his nobody’s demise, causing him to recomplete in a more conventional sense. The regrowth of his heart was expedited by his proximity to Roxas, and some extent Xion. Roxas by all means had had a heart the whole time, even if it was, on some technicality, Sora’s, but that closeness to a heart, and bonding with it through friendship helped him heal even faster. I believe that is why Ventus’s heart was able to complete itself already, having been cocooned in Sora’s own. In time, I believe you’re heart will be able to mend just the same. I hope so anyway. Your readings are...concerning. To say the least.”

Vanitas stared at his dangling feet. He wanted to spit and curse and call Ienzo a liar until the word lost meaning and his mouth felt like cotton, but he couldn’t help the small flame of relief and hope burning at his sternum. If his heart healed, would the pain stop? Would the unversed cease pouring from him? Could he salvage the scraps left to him and be _normal_? 

A sick feeling curled in his gut. It called him a stupid damned fool for thinking such a thing possible. Xehanort has told him for years that he was a monster, an abomination with only one hope for salvation. He wasn’t natural. He was skin over an oozing vessel of darkness. He spilled ghouls from his mouth and pores. Xehanort beat the facts into Vanitas with every strike of his keyblade. 

But then the master could be wrong. He’d been wrong many times before. 

Vanitas breathed through his nose, trying to bat away the dizziness threatening to make his vision swim. His throat burned. 

“I-“ he coughed. “Are you done with your exam?”

Ienzo looked at him like he were trying to peel back flesh and bone and stare at his soul. He closed his eyes and nodded once. 

“Yes, I’ve collected the data I require and will let you know of any serious developments.”

“Cool.” Vanitas’s hopped from the chair and staggered towards the exit. 

“Send in Sora, would you?” Ienzo asked. 

“Whatever.”

—

Ienzo watched him go and glanced back down at his notes.

“What is it?” Ansem asked. “What did you not tell him?”

Ienzo turned back around, fingers drumming against his clipboard. “I’m that transparent, am I?” He sighed. “The readings point to an exorbitant amount of darkness, far too much given the proportions of his heart. It doesn’t make sense. It’s almost as if it’s coming from an outside source.”

Even tapped his chin. “Do you think perhaps that’s why he is able to summon those creatures? Because he has darkness in excess?” 

“It’s possible,” Ansem hummed. “Or it could be a connection to the Realm of Darkness?”

Ienzo flipped to a graph. “See here that it spikes every few moments? Compare it to the charts of others, even heavy darkness users like Riku. Their’s is a much more stable read than this.”

“Perhaps we should ask Sora to go and take a look? That sort of thing is his expertise,” Even suggested. 

Ansem shook his head. “No. I will not allow that boy to put himself at risk like that again.”

“Maybe we should call in Ventus and see if anything can be gleaned from a closer examination of him, considering their connection,” said Ienzo. 

“Possibly, but let’s just worry about looking over Sora for now,” said Ansem.

**Author's Note:**

> So there’s a thing that’s going to happen directly after this but I can’t decide if it should be a second chapter or a different part. Like it has almost nothing to do with the science stuff lol
> 
> Anyway I’m shoulderpads-mcgee2 on tumblr and I love hearing from y’all :^)


End file.
